


The Correction of Csoru Zhasanai

by Island_of_Reil



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Age Difference, Bratting, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/F, Humiliation, Manhandling, Masturbation, Orgasm Denial, Panties, Post-Canon, Restraints, Stockings and Garters, Vaginal Fingering, Whipping, spanking bench
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-02 04:47:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Island_of_Reil/pseuds/Island_of_Reil
Summary: Csoru needs an attitude adjustment. With help from Merrem Esaran, Arbelan provides one.





	The Correction of Csoru Zhasanai

For Arbelan, the cultivation of Merrem Esaran’s acquaintance was by no means straightforward. It was not the done thing for a widow empress to socialize with any servant, let alone one who served the current emperor, and Esaran’s tenure at the Alcethmeret had begun many years after Arbelan’s had ended. The safest point of departure, Arbelan considered, was to express concern for His Serenity in her discreet, page-dispatched missive to Esaran. After all, it had the advantage of being earnest.

The reply came shortly thereafter: terse, guarded, but in the affirmative. Perhaps it was merely that Esaran did not feel at liberty to decline, but Arbelan could not muster much guilt over the idea of summoning a servant to tea. Terzheän paired the brew, strong but of good quality, with small, simple walnut pastries just a cut above what could be bought from a street vendor in Cetho or Zhaö. Fancier tit-bits, Arbelan had reasoned, would have aroused Esaran’s suspicion, as surely as would have serving her the most costly Barizheise wine — or, indeed, any intoxicating drink at all.

Nonetheless, as Esaran straightened from her deep bow, her sharp eyes alit warily on the pastries, though her ears remained rigidly set and her features gave nothing away. Arbelan did not press her to help herself, though neither did she call Terzheän over to pour tea for the steward.

Esaran seated herself in silence, poured her own cup, and added a sugar cube. As she stirred it briskly, she said in measured tones, “We are appreciative of your hospitality, Arbelan Zhasanai, as well as of your concern for His Serenity. An we may please speak candidly, however?”

“Of course you may.”

Esaran, unsurprisingly, took a very long sip before speaking again. “We are somewhat bemused at this invitation, Zhasanai. We are a mere servant, not a fellow noblewoman. It is not that we do not appreciate one of high birth who treats her lessers kindly, more that it is very unusual that one of the former would invite one of the latter to tea. We are intrigued and, perhaps, slightly apprehensive as to the import of this occasion.”

Arbelan gave her her best bland smile, let a second or two pass, and said, “This matter concerns Csoru Zhasanai.”

Esaran’s expression had already been neutral; now it settled into a perfect blankness which would have rivaled Mer Aisava’s in any situation. She took another unhurried sip of her tea and said, “We pray you explain, Arbelan Zhasanai.”

“Of course. In our regular suppers with His Serenity, he has expressed frustration with her habitual conduct at court, especially in her treatment of himself and Csethiro Zhasan. Very early in his reign, as we are sure you have heard, he made her quite aware of the line she cannot cross with him. However, as we are sure you know as well, she is also quite adept at dancing right up to that line and giving the appearance that she will sail right across it. His Serenity could, of course, call her out on this, but he feels it beneath his dignity to use his power to such ends and believes ignoring her provocations to be the wisest course. Our niece would be more than adequate to the task of setting our fellow Zhasanai straight, but she is in accord with Edrehasivar on this matter. Nonetheless, we find ourself offended on their behalf, and we would rather … effect a correction to Csoru Zhasanai’s attitude, shall we say, than suffer the current state of affairs to continue.”

Although Arbelan was certain she had seen a fleeting spark of interest in Esaran’s eyes, the steward did not otherwise react at all to these words. Arbelan continued: “We are aware that you yourself, even though you are powerful in comparison with other servants, have no sway over a widow empress. Our own position relative to hers is not straightforward. We were relegated, while she was not. However, neither of us gave the late emperor any children. In both age and the esteem of His Serenity Edrehasivar, we do believe we more than have the advantage of her. Nonetheless, we have judged that your assistance to us would be valuable in imparting a memorable lesson to Csoru Zhasanai.”

Esaran remained silent again behind her teacup, but the word _How?_ fairly rang through the room. Arbelan, on instinct, chose to wait her out; her far-higher rank meant the steward could not remain silent for fear of offending. At last Esaran said, “Could we please ask what you had in mind, Zhasanai?”

Again, Arbelan let a beat pass. Then she said, “When we were empress, we knew of a certain storage chamber in the cellars of the Alcethmeret. Not for foodstuffs or wine, but a place where certain antique … implements, shall we say, once used by those who managed the emperor’s household, were stored.”

The very long blink was, Arbelan thought, probably the best reaction she could have hoped for out of Esaran. She could not read the expression in the pale-green eyes. As she had already revealed her gambit, she decided to press her point: “We do not believe it would be meet, or indeed possible, to summon Csoru Zhasanai to that chamber. However, it would certainly be possible for some of the contents of that cellar to be delivered to our suite of rooms, preferably at a very quiet hour of the night, preferably by servants who can be trusted to keep their peace.”

“We see, Zhasanai,” Esaran said. “Is that the entirety of the matter?” The undertones of her voice made it very clear she suspected otherwise.

“Not quite,” Arbelan replied. “We were hoping for … an accomplice, as it were, to help us school Csoru Zhasanai in proper behavior, using such implements. Another woman, to avoid the potential of scandal. One with a certain strength of arm and shoulder, as, an you will forgive our forwardness, you appear to have. And, we hope, one who does not bear much in the way of sympathy for Csoru Zhasanai.”

The minute twitch at the corner of Esaran’s lips sent a thrill of victory through Arbelan, although she very carefully suppressed any reflection of it from her expression and ears. She merely said, “Please, Merrem Esaran, do help yourself to a pastry. You would not wish to insult our cook, would you?”

The twitch was noticeably more pronounced this time. “In sooth, we would not, Zhasanai,” Merrem Esaran conceded as she took a solitary confection from the platter.

***

Courtiers were creatures of the night, and talkative ones at that. Thus, it was not till an hour before dawn a few nights later that a cart made its way up from the depths of the Alcethmeret to the apartments of Arbelan Zhasanai. Heavy padding and thick tarpaulins obscured the items in transport. Two manservants in Merrem Esaran’s confidence quietly and industriously truckled the cart into a sizable inner chamber that shared no walls with other suites, unstrapped the tarpaulins and padding, set the lighter objects down on a long side table, and settled the heavy primary object onto the floor. Arbelan pressed a large coin into each man’s hand, which earned her polite (if vaguely sly) smiles and very deep bows.

Once alone again, she studied these items, which she guessed had not seen daylight in more than a century. On the table were a thick, sturdy wooden paddle whose handle was engraved with the barzhad for, she had once been told, “Thus always to the insolent, the idle, and the dishonest”; a thick, heavy leather strap; a light, single-tailed whip; and a bundle of birch twigs held together with a leather band. Arbelan hefted each implement of chastisement, slapping it lightly against her palm. Each was satisfying to hold in its own wise — in a tactile sense, in her gauging of its weight and its force, and in thoughts of how it might be applied to her future guest to produce optimal results.

None of these, however, was as pleasing to regard as was the unusual piece of furniture that had been on the cart. It was, after a fashion, a bench, with higher and lower wooden steps bracketed by delicate spires and arches of steel to form a kind of pyramid. Each level offered padded leather rests that could support the head, the hips, the knees, or the feet, depending on how the bench’s occupant was arranged thereupon, along with straps to secure and hold wrists and ankles in place. The ethereal steelwork might, at first glance, mislead one to think the object some kind of prayer or meditation bench designed for an othasmeire. Arbelan’s mouth quirked when she considered that, indeed, the individual secured to such a contraption might very well send up abject entreaties to the gods. All of which would go unanswered.

Arbelan was no stranger to implements such as this. Her years of relegation had been long, and she had frequently sought relief from her boredom and loneliness in sport with willing and discreet commoners. A few had broached the subject of the keener-edged pleasures to be found in the bedchamber, which Arbelan had heard of at court but never indulged in. Experimentation had taught her that she rather liked being on the wielding end of a whip, paddle, or strap. As she aged, her earlier lovers fell away, but seldom was she in want of a yielding soul who craved correction by a stern, regal former empress.

Csoru, she was sure, did not crave such correction at all. Nonetheless, Csoru would benefit immensely from same. And Arbelan even more from doling it out.

After indulging her imagination a while longer, she covered the item with a long, wide cloth. A servant’s task, properly speaking, but she saw no point in unduly scandalizing Terzheän or the rest of her household. Then she pulled open the table’s deep drawer and concealed the four instruments therein.

Next, she withdrew to her study, where she wrote a message to Csoru Zhasanai. She did not bother to express concern for His Serenity, as she assumed it would make no impression. Rather, she intimated an interest in matters that were of concern to former empresses without at all clarifying her meaning. After a moment’s pondering, she chose to gamble on a blatant lie that His Serenity himself thought it might be a good idea for the two zhasanai to converse on the unnamed matters. Though Csoru did not esteem Maia much at all, she had been made acutely aware that he wielded more power than she, and it was highly unlikely that she would ask him whether he had indeed said such a thing. Arbelan sweetened the missive with a few compliments toward Csoru’s sense of style, which required several pauses during which she rolled her eyes and pulled her lips into a flat line. She then rolled the paper, affixed her seal, and sent it off with a page.

Two days passed before she received a reply. The message itself conveyed as much disrespect as the delay in response did; Arbelan could picture Csoru huffing and rolling her own eyes while penning it. One would think she had agreed to shower Arbelan in diamonds and gift her with a wingèd horse, not simply meet her at Arbelan’s apartments for tea. Of course, Arbelan thought, this demonstration of haughtiness could be neatly added to Csoru’s ledger of offenses.

The tea itself was four days thence. A manservant moved the tea table and three chairs into the private inner chamber, wherein the instrument of restraint remained cloaked. Terzheän set the table with much finer fare than before: cucumber sandwiches made with the thinnest possible slices of both vegetable and bread; a sweetened, creamed cheese served with blackberries; pastries of spun sugar that Arbelan’s own cook had commissioned from Dachensol Ebremis; tea brewed from exceedingly fine smoked leaves. Esaran arrived on time, of course. She declined all refreshments, would not even seat herself at the table. Arbelan did not question her in this.

The traditional time of day for tea in the Ethuveraz was three o’clock in the afternoon. It was gauche for the highborn to arrive on time to any event; nonetheless, it was considerably beyond gauche to arrive at tea more than an hour late. No knock sounded upon the door of the inner chamber, nor did Terzheän open it to announce a second guest, until four-fifteen. The hour and quarter passed with silent tension, especially after three forty-five. Esaran’s mouth grew flatter and harder, and her ears flicked back minutely. Arbelan smiled absently. The wait, she thought, would make later events all the sweeter.

At last, there came the knock. “Arbelan Zhasanai, Csoru Zhasanai,” Terzheän declared. Csoru entered in a flurry of heavy ruffles, costly and cloying Porcharneise perfume, and inconvenienced distaste radiating from her entire person.

“Csoru,” Arbelan murmured, features and ears composed. “How lovely to see you. We are very pleased you were able to accept our invitation.”

Csoru’s eyes flicked to the wall by which Merrem Esaran stood at attention; her doll-like features registered surprise and offense. “Esaran? What dost here?”

Esaran’s face had blanked and her ears set the moment Terzheän had knocked at the door. “She is here at our invitation,” Arbelan said mildly.

The wide blue eyes stared vacantly for a second before narrowing. To Arbelan, Csoru demanded, “Are you in the habit of inviting servants to tea, Arbelan? We note the handiwork of Dachensol Ebremis on the table; we would think it wasted on such a guest.”

“We rather disagree, given that Merrem Esaran supervises the dachensol’s work and is more than acquainted with its rarefied quality.”

Csoru sniffed. “Yes, well, it is one thing to _supervise_ the production of fine cuisine, quite another to be worthy of its consumption. Of course, we understand that your years in relegation may have accustomed you to certain breaches of propriety. Esaran, ironically, seems to comprehend matters of rank much better than you yourself do.”

The jab would not have been worth the effort to parry even were Csoru’s reckoning not imminent. “Please do be seated, Csoru,” Arbelan said.

Csoru stepped primly to the table and waited for Terzheän to pull the chair out for her, whereupon she sat, let Terzheän push her in, and waited for Terzheän to pour her a cup of tea and sweeten it with a sugar cube. The maidservant’s face was as expressionless as Esaran’s, if less stony.

“You may go, Terzheän,” Arbelan said in an undertone.

“Arbelan Zhasanai, Csoru Zhasanai.” Terzheän dropped a deep bow to each widow empress. “And good day to you, Merrem Esaran.” With that, she departed. The door closed snugly in its frame with a distinct click that did not seem to catch Csoru’s heavily bejewelled ears. Terzheän, Arbelan reflected, was the epitome of acquiescence, no matter that she’d no need to know what precisely would befall Csoru in this chamber.

“So,” Csoru said, narrowed eyes darting from Arbelan to Esaran and back again. “What, may we ask, _are_ these ‘matters of concern to former empresses’ you hinted at in your message? Why are you entertaining us in what appears to be a storage chamber, and why would discussion of the aforementioned matters require the presence of the Alcethmeret’s steward?”

Arbelan straightened her shoulders and let the first tinge of asperity enter her voice. “These ‘matters,’ Csoru, are your conduct toward His Serenity and our niece Csethiro Zhasan. You continue to be as disrespectful toward them as court etiquette permits you to without repercussions. They have been extremely magnanimous in their tolerance of this behavior, which is not merely unjust to them but appallingly unbecoming to you yourself as the Widow Empress. We would ask that you remedy it.”

The blue eyes went saucer-wide before narrowing again, and the ears flattened with a heavy tinkling and clash of metal. Coldly, Csoru said, “We do not think that to be any affair of yours, Arbelan. You overstep yourself. Especially in inviting a mere servant, from Edrehasivar’s household no less, to listen to such a tirade. Servants talk, as we are sure you know. Or did you intend for her to carry this tale?”

“If we overstep ourself, it is chiefly out of concern for our niece and our nephew-by-marriage. You are aware, are you not, that you remain at court solely at Edrehasivar’s forbearance? He would have every right to upbraid you in the Untheileian in front of all the court, an it were like him to do so. He would have every right to relegate you, for that matter, to a place where you could vex him or Csethiro Zhasan no longer. You should find in yourself a measure of gratitude to us that instead we are upbraiding you in private. And Merrem Esaran is far more discreet than any ten given courtiers.”

Csoru sneered. “An your nephew-by-marriage does not speak so to us in the Untheileian, it is because he has not the backbone.”

Were it not for long childhood training that had remained ingrained even after decades spent in the back of beyond, Arbelan would have visibly ground her teeth. “What you mistake for a lack of spine, Csoru, is a sense of proportion and an unwillingness to waste his power or his energies on you. Had Edrehasivar the character of his late father, you might not have enjoyed such forbearance.”

This time Csoru’s mouth opened as wide as her eyes. “How _dare_ you speak so of Varenechibel?” she hissed.

“We dare because we were wed to Nemora as well, our dear, and we knew him as well as you did. We speak no more than soothly of him. Evidently he mellowed somewhat in his final years, or perhaps he simply tired with age, for from all we have heard he never reined you in at all. It was well within his rights to have taken a strap or a staff to you, Csoru. In our opinion, it was all to the worse that he did not.”

One could not in sooth call Csoru’s stare a blank one, for her eyes glittered. Arbelan saw her hand move to the handle of the teacup. Though she did not wish to duck or flinch, she knew the liquid would be hot, and she threw her arm protectively over her face. The tea hit it squarely, and even through the thick velvet of her long sleeve the scalding heat made her hiss through her teeth.

Before she could open her eyes and lower her arm, she spied movement and heard a shriek of protest. Esaran had strode to Csoru’s side and gripped her upper arm. The steward looked expectantly at Arbelan, who rose dripping with tea and said, “Thank you, Merrem.”

“Release us, thou wretched beast!” Csoru shouted.

“She will not, to be sure,” Arbelan said tightly. “Speak’st to us of ‘breaches of propriety,’ Csoru? Hast proven thyself a hypocrite.”

“How _durst_ thou address us informally! And before a servant to boot!” Csoru bellowed, trying to wrest her upper arm free to no avail.

“Oh, wilt wish by afternoon’s end this were the greatest indignity wilt have suffered,” Arbelan retorted.

“Should we call for your maidservant and edocharo, Arbelan Zhasanai?” Esaran asked with concern.

“No, we think we will proceed as planned, soaked gown or not. We anticipate that this afternoon’s exercise will ward off any chill.” Arbelan strode to the covered object on the other side of the room and, in one swift motion, yanked the cloth away.

Csoru’s eyeballs nearly leapt from their orbits. Presumably, Arbelan thought, she too was familiar with the contents of that cellar in the Alcethmeret. With another panicked shriek the younger zhasanai managed to free herself of Esaran’s grip and flee to the door — only to find that the handle would not yield to her frantic tugging. “Hast locked me in?!” she cried, struggling wildly as Esaran seized her again.

“We have,” Arbelan said, managing to keep her sense of vicious satisfaction out of her voice. “And wilt not leave here until Esaran and we have effected an adjustment to thy childish, petty, and most unmeet attitude for a former empress. Merrem Esaran, please arrange her on the bench.”

The next half a minute was punctuated by screams, imprecations, and threats from Csoru, plus the sound of her slippers dragging in the deep-piled carpet as Esaran manhandled her toward the forbidding piece of furniture. “Let us help you, Merrem,” Arbelan called out finally over the racket, striding toward the implacable steward and her incandescent charge.

Esaran similarly raised her voice to be heard. “An you would please grasp her wrists, Arbelan Zhasanai…”

Arbelan might have been several decades Csoru’s elder, but she moved spryly enough still, and thus she managed to avoid the deliberate slashes of Csoru’s nails to grab her fine-boned wrists and hold tight to them. Esaran stooped to seize her ankles, which heightened the pitch and volume of Csoru’s outburst considerably. With a grimly determined effort they shifted her onto the bench and bent her double, such that the highest padded leather rest was beneath her torso and her head rested upon a lower one. It took some effort for each of them to get either one wrist or one ankle secured in the restraints closer to the bench’s base, as the other by necessity had to be released and then pinned against the restraints with a hip or thigh. Once this was done, however, it was much less of a trial to secure the other. Csoru’s attempts to overturn the heavy bench by thrashing about in her restraints were for naught.

Arbelan drew back panting somewhat, as did Esaran to a lesser degree, to look over their handiwork and wait until Csoru’s struggles had somewhat subsided. The younger widow empress turned her cheek to the headrest to glare at Arbelan and snarled, “Wilt pay dearly for this assault on our person, Arbelan. And Esaran, thou wolf-bitch, even more dearly.”

“We would suggest,” Arbelan rejoined, moving from the formal to the plural, “that thou not beginn’st just yet to calculate the terms of our supposed ‘payment.’ For we have not even _started_ to exact penance from thy person. Merrem Esaran, please clear her garments out of the way with as little damage to them as possible.”

“Lady of the Stars!” Csoru cried, her eyes wild, seeking to break free again as she felt Esaran’s hands on her skirts. “This is grossly indecent, Arbelan!”

“Nonsense. We are all women here, Csoru. Thine edocharei regularly see thee in a state of undress, and we’re sure hast likewise seen other women in such a state from time to time. Merrem, will you need pins for this task?”

“We do not believe so, Zhasanai,” Esaran replied as she carefully rolled and tucked Csoru’s skirts so that they would remain above her waist. Csoru continued to wriggle in her bonds, to no avail, uttering a stream of invective that was entirely improper for a woman of her station.

Arbelan’s eyes were drawn to that which she would soon be chastising: to wit, Csoru’s backside. It was small, as befit her statute, but there was a pleasing roundness to it that could be perceived through the sheer white silk of her tight underpants — a match for that of her garters and stockings — and it undulated with her futile strivings for freedom. The jolt of liquid heat through Arbelan’s belly was unexpected but not entirely surprising. This was not, strictly speaking, sport. But she need not _like_ Csoru to derive any satisfaction other than the moral kind from the younger zhasanai’s imminent castigation.

“Can you remove her underpants without tearing them, Merrem?” Arbelan asked.

“Perverted beasts, the both of you!” Csoru howled.

“We are not sure we can remove them completely, Zhasanai, but we can lower them. They are secured by ribbons on either side — ah, there we go.” The right-side ribbons were slack in Esaran’s hands. She moved around to Csoru’s left and began tackling the ribbons there, and within a moment she had unknotted them and was pushing the undergarment as far as it would go down Csoru’s spraddled thighs.

The humid heat in Arbelan’s belly waxed more strongly. Csoru had a most lovely bottom, she thought; it resembled the finest white porcelain, as befit an elf of an exceedingly pure bloodline. The marks of chastisement would contrast nicely with whatever skin remained untouched at the end of this afternoon. Beneath the cleft of her buttocks peeped nether lips of pale pink, denuded of hair by the practiced touch of her edocharei. Unwilling to give even unconscious credence to Csoru’s accusations, Arbelan did not let her gaze linger there. Instead she turned her attention to the side table, opening the drawer to display the four implements of punishment therein.

“Merrem Esaran, could we please ask your considered opinion on which of these objects would yield the maximum benefit when applied to Csoru Zhasanai’s posterior?”

“We cannot believe this!” Csoru shouted. “Wouldst ask a _steward_ how she would beat one of her _betters?!”_

As if Csoru had not spoken, Esaran pursed her lips. “Well, we have very seldom had to make such decisions, Zhasanai, you understand. However, we would probably forego the birch, as it has a tendency to, ah, cause a bit of splattering.” There was a noise from Csoru like the squeaking of a rusty hinge. “Your carpet must already be cleaned of tea, and perhaps it would be better not to add blood to the mix.”

“A very good point,” Arbelan said with feigned thoughtfulness. Esaran had not told her anything she had not already known; she had her own idea as to which item should be laid across Csoru’s defenseless bottom. The exchange itself, however, provided a measure of humiliation for Csoru that was worth its weight in gold.

“The strap might be the most merciful choice, Zhasanai, as it is least likely to break the skin,” Esaran continued. “We do not know nor presume to know how merciful you are feeling — ”

“Not very,” Arbelan said bluntly.

“Yes, Zhasanai. That leaves the choices of the paddle and the whip. The paddle is also not very likely to break the skin, but it may bruise deeply, and thus it requires the castigator to judiciously check her strength. The whip, of course, leaves weals. It must also be wielded carefully so as not to cause excessive harm.”

“Which is not to say that no harm at all is desirable,” Arbelan replied. “Certainly, we would wish to leave Csoru Zhasanai with some stern reminders of the consequences of behaving like a spoilt child at court.”

“Then, Zhasanai, we believe you have made your choice?” Esaran inquired mildly.

“We have, Merrem. The whip it shall be.”

 ** _“No!”_** Csoru commenced to flailing in her restraints again, her bottom swaying wildly with her motions. Her tone was verging on hysteria. “Please! Arbelan! Don’t whip me!”

“The time for polite entreaties concluded some time ago, Csoru,” Arbelan said, letting anger and vengefulness darken her voice as she slapped the doubled lash repeatedly against her palm. Csoru flinched visibly at the sound of each slap. “It is only now, restrained and bared, that thou begg’st for clemency — and wilt not receive it. Wilt instead receive thy just desserts. Prepare thyself for the first of them.”

“Arbelan, _please,_ I beg of you,” Csoru whined, her voice trembling and choked.

“Oh, dost think resorting to tears will avail thee at all? Save them, and thy breath; wilt have use for them shortly.” And, with that, Arbelan drew back her right arm and dealt Csoru a sharp, smart blow directly across the breadth of her left buttock.

Csoru’s shriek was not one of outrage, now, but of pain and terror. Immediately a fine, rose-pink horizontal line blossomed across that cheek, which squirmed with the fiery heat imparted to it by the stroke. Arbelan wanted nothing more at that moment than to make the right one match the left straight away. She stilled herself, mastering the feeling of savagery that had welled up within her. She could not control her body’s reactions entirely, but she could stay mindful that the purpose of this exercise was strictly to school Csoru.

Silently, she counted to thirty. Csoru lay gasping, her whole body tensed, the muscles of her buttocks clenching and relaxing as if she were trying to anticipate when next the lash would fall. Merrem Esaran did not speak or move; her cold eyes had settled on Csoru’s quivering behind, as if assessing whether Arbelan had colored it sufficiently upon the first stroke.

At the count of thirty-one, Arbelan delivered the second, square across Csoru’s right buttock. She noted with an almost clinical interest how the flesh bowed under the force of the whip, then how it sprang up again resiliently, almost around the lash-tip itself before Arbelan jerked it away. Csoru screamed once more, prolongedly, her voice trailing off into a groan. Her fists were clenched in the wrist restraints.

“How many strokes in all do you recommend, Merrem Esaran?” she asked conversationally, admiring how prettily welted Csoru now was on both sides. Once again, she had motive for the question other than obtaining Esaran’s opinion.

Esaran pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well. As we implied earlier, we have only very, very occasionally had to discipline a servant physically, Zhasanai. We have, however, seen another steward do so, and of course we have attended public floggings. We ourself typically find that if a servant be any good, their behavior can be shaped in other, less-drastic ways.” She paused.

Arbelan took the opportunity to interject, “Of course, we do not deal with a servant here.”

“How kind of thee to admit that, Arbelan,” Csoru said through gritted teeth, apparently forgetting that a few minutes before she had piteously addressed Arbelan in the formal.

“A servant has far more utility than thou, Csoru. A good one executes their duties competently, if not excellently, and treats the affairs of their betters with discretion; an they interact at all with said betters they will also have been trained to be flawlessly polite and deferential. This is far more than can be said of thee, who art surly, indiscreet, and as far as we can tell utterly useless. As we see no evidence that thou desirest to attain any laudable qualities, we see no point in resorting to the less-drastic methods of schooling thee to which Merrem Esaran alludes. Merrem, we ask you again: how many more strokes would you say we should deal out to Csoru Zhasanai?”

Once again, Esaran did not answer immediately, but stroked her chin while continuing to eye Csoru’s bottom and the pink stripe that crossed it from left to right. “From what we have heard and seen, a fairly standard number is twelve.”

 ** _“Twelve?!”_** Csoru yelled, and she began to struggle in her bonds again.

“Merrem Esaran did say, Csoru, that twelve is the _standard_ number,” Arbelan said. “Presumably that is for relatively minor offenses such as idleness when out of the steward’s sight, letting a roast char on the spit, and so forth. Tell us, what sort of flogging wouldst thou thyself mete out to a servant who made their commanded appearance an hour and a quarter late? Or who threw hot tea on thee? Or who called thee a ‘wolf-bitch’ or a ‘perverted beast’?”

“Arbelan, _please,”_ Csoru whined. “I know I have been … impolite to you. And to Merrem Esaran,” she added as an afterthought. “But the whip hurts so much I fear I shall be unable to walk afterward. No more, I beg of you!”

Arbelan scoffed. “Hast already once before shifted thy pronouns in a pretense to humility, only to shift them back the moment thy temper got the best of thee. We do not for a moment believe thee to be sincere, other than in thy determination to escape the correction so richly deservest.” With that, she raised her right hand again and, this time, brought the whip down diagonally across the breadth of Csoru’s arse, and before Csoru had ceased to shriek she gave her a second diagonal cut in the opposite direction.

“That is four,” Arbelan said sternly over Csoru’s gasps and moans. She noted with appreciation how much redder Csoru’s buttocks were now and how her entire body had tensed in its bonds.

“If we may offer a suggestion, Arbelan Zhasanai?”

“Yes, Merrem Esaran?”

The steward said without inflection or expression, “The flesh of the buttocks, Zhasanai, waxes in sensitivity as one moves down toward where they join the backs of the thighs. And it is not unknown for a penitent to receive strokes of the lash or other implement upon the backs of the thighs themselves.” Csoru greeted this recitation with a loud sob that dwindled away into a hiccup.

“Your suggestions continue to be invaluable, Merrem,” Arbelan said. “Could we please ask you to remove Csoru Zhasanai’s garters and roll down her stockings for us, in the event we wish to aim the whip a little lower?”

Esaran obeyed. Csoru sobbed even more loudly as the steward worked each garter down to her ankle, then rolled the stocking down to below the knee. Arbelan restrained herself from rolling her eyes. She did not doubt Csoru was smarting from the blows she had received and dreading those yet to come, but the sobs were theatrically pitched to elicit maximum pity.

“Done, Arbelan Zhasanai,” Esaran said, stepping backward.

“Our thanks, Merrem.”

Arbelan remained still and unmoving for a count of sixty this time, enjoying the sight of Csoru’s tremors and anticipatory twitches. Surely, she thought, the younger zhasanai was anticipating that Arbelan would strike her upon the lowest part of her seat, as Esaran had recommended. Instead, she cracked the whip across the width of both buttocks, immediately on top of the welts that had sprung up in the wake of the first two strokes. Csoru screamed as that flesh was further inflamed — and _then,_ one second later, Arbelan struck her upon the crease of the right buttock, upon the crease of the left, and then upon both creases at once.

“Eight,” Arbelan snapped over Csoru’s screeches. The younger widow empress could not stop wriggling with the agony, her flaming-red bottom squirming with as little dignity as if she were a young and unruly schoolgirl laid over the matron’s lap. And, though Arbelan tried to keep her gaze from settling lower down, she could not help but note that Csoru’s buttocks were not the only region of her flesh that had swollen and darkened over the last several minutes.

She cleared her throat, which seemed suddenly dry, and declared, “Shouldst be grateful to us that we are not delaying overly in carrying out thy chastisement. We could have made thee wait for each fall of the lash, and for far longer than a minute. We could have made thee _count_ each stroke, for that matter, and repeated every stroke thou failed’st to count.”

“Thou …” Csoru hiccuped again, her voice reedy with weeping. “Thou art truly a wretched beast, Arbelan. Did Varenechibel put thee aside only because wert barren, or did he sense thy brutal, unwomanly nature even before that?”

Arbelan blinked hard, then decided that at this juncture there was not much merit in suppressing the laughter that rose to her lips. “Art truly incorrigible, art not? Art bound, art exposed, hast already taken eight strokes to thine impudent arse, and still thou insultest us? Shalt receive fourteen blows all in all now. Here, we’ll get the ninth over with quickly for thee.” She flattened the whip straight across the midpoint of Csoru’s thighs, which produced a far more hysterical shriek than she thought she’d heard so far. “Ah, thank you, Merrem Esaran, for suggesting the backs of her thighs as a site of punishment. We were beginning to think her little bottom was as calloused as her attitude.”

“We … hate thee … _so much,”_ Csoru sobbed desperately.

“If you will forgive our forwardness, she is still rather less than demure, Arbelan Zhasanai,” Esaran noted.

“Yes, Merrem, but she is less coherent with it, and for the moment we find this sufficient.”

Arbelan then drew her arm back and delivered the tenth stroke, further up the backs of Csoru’s thighs but not quite to the crease of her buttocks. Her own loins seemed to pulse with a silken, fluid heat as she regarded the tableau of Csoru’s suffering, the ladder and lattice of rosy welts from the summits of her buttocks down to a few inches above the hollows of her knees, the indecent wriggling of her hips and bottom, her abject and piteous sobs and gasps, and — yes — the obscene pout of her quim-lips, reddened as if they too had been kissed by the lash.

“Four left,” Arbelan announced. “Art ready, Csoru?”

There was no answer but Csoru’s stentorious breathing. Arbelan strode forward and, minding her nails, delivered a sharp pinch to the left underside of Csoru’s inflamed bottom. Csoru screamed again and unleashed a torrent of abuse involving Arbelan’s lack of feminine graces, her barrenness, and how her very soul was an abomination unto the gods.

“Ah, so dost enjoy this, then, given how obviously thou begg’st to be hit more?” It was not an idle question, given the evidence of Csoru’s arousal, but Arbelan did not expect a reply. “Fine; wilt have _sixteen_ strokes all in all.”

She stepped back and dealt the first two immediately: straight down each buttock vertically, overlapping every single crosswise welt she’d given Csoru so far. Csoru issued long, echoing bellows connected by wet sobs, although Arbelan could perceive an slurred obscenity now and again. “Art even capable of restraining thyself from cursing us, Csoru, no matter that we have twice increased thy punishment and could easily do so again? To think that so ill-bred a wench sat the throne! We do not doubt now that Nemora was losing his wits to age.” And before Csoru could reply, Arbelan dealt her a new blow full across the crease that divided buttocks from thighs. Csoru bawled; she had begun to go hoarse.

Arbelan took a moment to peer intently at her handiwork again. There were still modest expanses of white where the whip had not fallen, but where it had saluted Csoru’s flesh most often, little crimson beads had welled up. “We think we will spare thy bottom any more chastisement, Csoru. However, we do espy other places on thee that could withstand a bit of punishment.” So having said, Arbelan stood at an angle to the bench, drew her arm back, and snapped the whip across the fleshiest point of Csoru’s right inner thigh.

Csoru’s utterances had dwindled to bleating moans, interspersed with sobs that were deep, body-wracking, and rheumy. _Not the pretty, beguiling sort of tears now,_ Arbelan thought. Without pity or hesitation she dealt the fifteenth blow to Csoru’s left inner thigh, savored the unbecoming cries of pain, and waited until Csoru had calmed.

“One more. Where should we land it, Csoru….?” Arbelan mused aloud. She stepped closer to Csoru once again and, holding the lash itself between two fingertips, dangled it so that the very tip brushed the lips of Csoru’s quim, which twitched and contracted visibly.

 ** _“Aiiieee!_** No! Please!” Csoru blubbered. “Not there, Arbelan! Please don’t hit me there!”

“No? Canst say in sooth dost not deserve the pain, having cursed and insulted us until well into thy punishment in addition to all thine other offenses?” Arbelan idly drew the tip up and down the swollen, trembling lips and, with a greedy rush of excitement, noted that their inner surfaces had begun to glisten.

“No.. please… I’ll be good… anywhere else … just not there,” Csoru sobbed.

Arbelan continued to tease her there for a long moment, letting Csoru’s anxiety and her own cupidity crest, until she jerked the whip away — and, even before Csoru’s shaking sigh of relief had left her, Arbelan cracked it down upon Csoru’s left hip. Csoru uttered a final shrieking wheeze.

“There. Merrem Esaran, would you please return this to the drawer?”

“Of course, Zhasanai,” Esaran said over Csoru’s reinvigorated sobs, taking the whip from Arbelan.

“Whipping was a most excellent suggestion on your part, Merrem. Note how much more subdued Csoru Zhasanai is, how sweetly she begged us for mercy! We like this new, more-docile widow empress much better than the old, haughty one.” She smoothed a hand over Csoru’s buttocks, marveling at how very hot the skin was, smearing the droplets of blood across it. Csoru quivered under her touch, whimpering. “And is it simply our imagination, or does she seem to have attained a state of … heightened sensation, if we may call it that?”

“It is not an unusual occurrence, if not an inevitable one,” Esaran said neutrally. “When one heats the buttocks, one often heats, ah, adjoining areas as well.”

Arbelan’s hand had moved down to caress Csoru’s inner thighs before resuming her fondling of the younger widow empress’s buttocks. Csoru’s sobs seemed to have taken on a sighing quality, and the movements of her hips strongly suggested she was rising to meet Arbelan’s hand.

“Perhaps we should see for ourself.” Careful again with her fingernails, Arbelan parted the nether lips to reveal membranes of a deep orchid pink, blood-engorged and sparkling with wetness. “Blessed Lady of the Stars. We do believe our suspicion was correct.”

“Arbelan…” Csoru sobbed. Then she sobbed even harder as, even more delicately, Arbelan plied the tip of one heavily lacquered nail against the shining jut of Csoru’s pearl. The more Arbelan stroked her there, the more forcefully Csoru pushed her punished bottom backward to meet the rhythmically moving nail-tip.

Arbelan bit her lip, only partly in consideration. She wondered whether, having been broken into helpless entreaties and abject wantonness, Csoru could also be induced by the whip, or the paddle or another implement, to apply her tongue and fingertips for Arbelan’s pleasure. Some other time, of course, without Merrem Esaran present. As for the here and now, it would be fittingly humiliating for Csoru to spend on her finger after having been thoroughly flogged, and in front of a servant no less.

On the other hand, Csoru was humiliating herself quite adequately right now. And, Arbelan thought, she had very much _not_ earned the right to satiation.

She waited until Csoru’s breathing had sped up into telling gasps, and her hips had begun to jerk, before she pulled her finger away. Csoru groaned miserably, wriggling her bottom as if, with it, she were trying to beckon Arbelan’s finger back.

“What, didst think we’d allow thee to spend?” Arbelan demanded, scornful laughter in her voice. “Yes, the whipping did effect a great improvement in thee, but not so much that we feel inclined to bring thee across the threshold of pleasure. Merrem, please restore her stockings and underpants to order — there should be a handkerchief in the drawer as well — and then unbind her and help her up.”

She’d expected a renewal of profanities and insults, maybe a sharp kick to her or Merrem Esaran’s shins once Csoru had been freed from the bench. But to have been intimately exposed, thoroughly chastised, and then betrayed by her own body in front of both a peer and a servant seemed to have left Csoru meek with shame. She let Esaran roll her stockings back up her thighs, whining a little at the touch of the silk and the pinch of the garter where the whip had inflamed her. She sobbed somewhat as Esaran dabbed at her welts with the handkerchief, and sobbed more loudly as the steward delicately blotted the cloth between her legs. Esaran then pulled up Csoru’s underpants again and fastened the ties. When released from her bonds, Csoru could barely stand at first, leaning on Esaran’s arm as if it were the gallantly proffered arm of a swain at a ball. Arbelan noted with satisfaction how stiffly she moved; both her movements and her garments must have further inflamed her welts considerably.

“And so concludes this afternoon’s correction,” Arbelan said with an air of finality. “We hope the salutary effects of it on thy temperament will last, Csoru. An that is not the case, we would be delighted to reapply our methods. Please do send us a message in that event, Csoru, and we will have this room prepared once again for thee.”

That earned her a malevolent glare before Csoru pulled sharply away from Esaran and walked — rather like a duck, Arbelan thought — to the door. And tugged on it, quite having forgotten it was locked from the outside.

“Ah, yes.” Arbelan rang the bell-pull. A silent, tense minute later, footsteps sounded outside the door, and there was the distinct click again.

“Zhasanai—” Terzheän began, but bit back the words as Csoru stalked past her. Distantly, the sound of the door to Arbelan’s suite could be heard slamming.

***

“Zhasanai, are you sure you do not want us to help—”

“Leave us alone, Uvreno,” Csoru snapped. “For a good hour.”

“Zhasanai,” the edocharo said quietly, withdrawing from the bathing chamber.

Csoru had not dressed or undressed herself in years, and the furious trembling of her fingers made it all the more difficult to undo her plethora of buttons and ribbons. At last, she kicked the heap of taffeta and silk into a corner. Her underpants, she balled up and lobbed into the blazing hearth. The handkerchief had not absorbed all the blood or … other fluids. And, of course, servants talked. Thank the gods that, outside of the hottest few weeks of summer, a fire was always necessary to a comfortable bath at the Untheileneise Court.

Uvreno had, Csoru admitted grudgingly, drawn her precisely the bath she’d hoped to sink into: hot, deep, piled high with suds, the water softened with essence of theshre, all her favorite soaps and oils arranged on the side of the tub. The hot water stung her poor abused bottom, thighs, and hip, of course, but there was no help for that; she bore it with tight-gritted teeth and pinned-back ears.

There was still an air of unreality to the entire afternoon as it had unfolded. Part of Csoru’s mind still could not believe that Arbelan had — done what she did. With the aplomb of one who has done such debauched things before. In front of Esaran, no less! Perhaps Orshan or Cstheio had indeed blasted Arbelan’s womb for her wicked unnaturalness. Csoru refused to imagine the salacious demands such a wicked harridan would have made of poor Varenechibel.

She sank into the mound of bubbles until they tickled her chin. The theshre began to help in a short while, drawing out the worst of the lash’s sting, but it could not halt the deep throb of Csoru’s flesh from the top of her left hip to nearly the backs of her knees.

And, as she’d demonstrated unwillingly in Arbelan’s apartments, she throbbed in places where she hadn’t been struck at all.

She resisted, at first. The shameful indignities she had just suffered would not evaporate from her memory any time soon, perhaps ever, even after both those degenerate hags had gone to Ulis. But the more she contemplated the memory … _bent over, bound, bared, whipped, made to scream, made to beg for mercy in words, made to beg for release in movements_ … the harder the blood pulsed in her loins, the more desperate the pull of her appetite.

The suds concealed her impudent hand as it slid down to touch her nipples, swollen and tender with the heat of the bath. She tugged each one gently, then less gently, scraping the tips of nails across the crowns — _as Arbelan might have done?_ She chewed her lip to keep moans from escaping. For all she knew, Uvreno lingered at the door in case Csoru called to her, or might be passing by it.

She could not suppress a moan when she slid downward in the tub, which rubbed her fiery bottom against the porcelain, that she could bow her legs outward. Her hand descended down over her belly and her smoothly shaven mound. She remembered the feel of Arbelan’s nails parting the lips and, almost against her will, imitated them with her own. And imitated the delicate, delicate scrape of one nail-tip upon her pearl.

It should not, she thought, be so pleasurable. When her blood was so stirred, she generally preferred the corner of a well-starched, folded handkerchief, paired with the intrusion of a smooth glass phallus purchased discreetly from an artisan in Zhaö. She did not favor the bath, which laved away her natural slickness, as a place for self-gratification. But now she rose up to meet the finger she imagined to be Arbelan’s, gasped as she inadvertently ground her welted buttocks against the tub’s bottom, and found her eyes wet with tears at not merely the pain but at how it sharpened the pleasure.

It had been a very long time since she had climaxed quite that hard. She shoved her free wrist against her mouth to hold back her cries as she shuddered, hips jerking heedless of the skin her movements inflamed, toes curling against the porcelain. For a long while afterward she lay limp in the water, staring blindly at the cats in the ornately carved ceiling and losing herself in the muted, susurrant throb of her own blood through the flesh that Arbelan had sternly marked.

By the time a sense of the everyday had returned to her, she had come to a sort of realization. It was not one she much liked. She let the water drain around her and refilled the tub with fresh hot water, adding another measure of theshre oil from the vial and not bothering with soap bubbles. Her appetite sated, she let herself contemplate matters as they stood while her flesh subsided into a dull, almost companionable ache.

When finally she stood, draped herself in a thick towel, and rang the bell-pull, realization had hardened into resolution.

The next morning, seated most gingerly upon the chair to her writing-desk, she took up a cap pen whose ink was summer-sky blue and her favored paper — heavy, cream-colored, the surface satiny-soft — and wrote:

> _To Arbelan Drazharan, Ethuverazhid Zhasanai._
> 
> _Hast absolutely no standing from which to chide us for our “comportment.” We look forward to — nay,_ expect _— another invitation to tea from thee, minus that dreadful Esaran creature, during which time we expect wilt finish what didst start._
> 
> _Csoru Drazharan, Ethuverazhid Zhasanai_


End file.
